Scythe Zipang 139MM CPU Cooler Review

Introduction:

Let's face it, no one likes blazing hot temperatures in any sensitive component from a bad cooling setup. It can cause instability, poor overclocks, artifacts, shorter component life, and unneeded stress upon the user. Then, factor in the noise that a poor cooling setup generates, and that just spells out disaster for enthusiasts. Obviously, cooling is extremely important for a multitude of reasons - and the selection reflects that. A decent liquid cooling setup is often too expensive and complicated, leaving us with high end air coolers, which are found all over the place nowadays. But, of course, newer and superior products are released, replacing older, more inefficient designs.

So today, I'll be taking a look at Scythe's brand new Zipang. This thing has a monstrous wingspan and a massive 139mm fan - wow! The Zipang is touted to be quad-core ready and compatible with all the latest sockets. This includes AMD's 754/939/AM2 and Intel's 478/775 sockets. I'm pretty interested in the Zipang. Many of Scythe's latest offerings have been gaining ground in the enthusiast world for performing extremely well, and at pretty good prices. So, let's see how the Zipang fares.

Closer Look:

To be honest, I chuckled when I first took a look at the Zipang box. In addition to the heatsink having a rather odd name, the box is splattered with loud, non-English characters that quite frankly made me wonder if I just received some sort of counterfeit rip-off. I hope the build and performance of the Zipang doesn't uphold my first impression.

I opened the lid of the box and found extremely efficient packaging. The heatsink sits in a cradle on the right - with all the miscellaneous parts in a small box on the left. In this box, I poured three socket clips, screws, an instruction pamphlet, and an interesting glob of thermal paste.